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On the plane down to Quito my mind was racing with questions. What
exactly is a web journalist? What would I see in Ecuador? Was Sam
still alive?
Sam had left a day before me and I hoped that he had made it to our
new home safely. However, my imagination convinced me that he was
lost, kidnapped or rotting in a Quito jail. My imagination also
reminded me of the movie Alive about a rugby team who crashed in the
Andes and were forced to eat each other to survive. The plane dropped
and shook as we flew over the mountains in darkness. The woman sitting
next to me prayed, tightly shut her eyes and shivered the entire
flight. Finally , Quito appeared from behind the mountains and looked
like a river of lights.
After landing, I was picked up and brought to our new home where I found Sam safe in the hands of Dona Fabiola. The next morning Sam woke me up and opened the shades of my room to reveal red tile rooftops and a huge green mountain in the distance. It finally sunk
in that I wasn't in New Jersey anymore.
On our second day in Quito Sam and I went to visit the colonial heart
of Quito. Along with whitewashed houses and colonial churches, the
cobblestone streets are filled with a bustling market. If you have a
bad sense of direction and a good sense of adventure like Sam and I,
you can get lost in minutes.
We turned off of a main road and into an alleyway filled with
vendors selling anything from electronics to textiles. This alley
continued around a corner and then down a flight of stairs where it
suddenly got a lot darker and scarier. Within this subterranean
market were more directions leading to more vendors. Sam and I just
walked aimlessly until an alley way opened up into a courtyard filled
with women selling fruits and grains. Three men came running past us
with huge stereo boxes on their backs; strapped to their bodies by a
sole leather rope wrapped around their foreheads. Children who
couldn't have been older than five came up to us and tried to shine
our shoes and sell us candy.
After finding our way back to a main road an old woman shoved me
into Sam as a younger man tried to grab Sam's wallet from his pocket.
Sam pushed his hand away and we ducked out of the crowd and onto a
bench. An old man named Rafael came up to us and told us to be
careful.
People streamed past us. At the end of the street old white houses
dissipated as they climbed up the green mountains. Sam and I just sat
quietly and took it all in.
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